Source multiplexing in lithography

ABSTRACT

An illumination system for an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography system may include multiple sources of EUV light. The system may combine the light from the multiple sources when illuminating a mask.

BACKGROUND

The progressive reduction in feature size in integrated circuits (ICs)is driven in part by advances in lithography. ICs may be created byalternately etching material away from a chip and depositing material onthe chip. Each layer of materials etched from the chip may be defined bya lithographic process in which light shines through or reflected from amask, exposing a photosensitive material, e.g., a photoresist afterimaging through projection optics.

The ability to focus the light used in lithography, and hence to produceincreasingly smaller line widths in ICs, is a function of the wavelengthof the light used. Current techniques may use light having a wavelengthof about 193 nm. The use of “soft” x-rays (wavelength range of λ≈10 nmto 20 nm) in lithography is being explored to achieve smaller desiredfeature sizes. Soft x-ray radiation may also be referred to as extremeultraviolet (EUV) radiation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an illumination system for an ExtremeUltraviolet (EUV) lithography system.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of an array of hexagonal mirrors in amulti-element pupil.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart describing a method for imaging a mask pattern ona wafer using multiple sources of illumination.

FIG. 4 is a light combining section of an illumination system.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart describing an alternative method for imaging amask pattern on a wafer using multiple sources of illumination.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a scanning reticle receiving light beamsfrom multiple sources of illumination. The quality of the diagrams hasdropped and needs to be fixed.

FIG. 7 is a light combining section of an alternative illuminationsystem.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart describing a method for multiplexing light frommultiple sources.

FIG. 9 is a perspective view of a light combining section of anillumination system utilizing rotating mirrors.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates an illumination system 100 for a lithography system.In an embodiment, the lithography system may be an Extreme Ultraviolet(EUV) lithography system. EUV lithography is a projection lithographytechnique which may use a reduction optical system and illumination inthe soft X-ray spectrum (wavelengths in the range of about 10 nm to 20nm).

The system 100 may include multiple sources of EUV radiation 110–112,imaging collectors 115, a multi-element pupil 120, and condenser optics125. The optical elements in the system (e.g., the imaging collectors115, pupil 120, and condenser 125) may be mirrors made to be reflectiveto EUV light of a particular wavelength (typically 13.4 nm) by means ofmultilayer coatings (typically of Mo and Si). Since EUV is stronglyabsorbed by materials and gases, the lithography process may be carriedout in a vacuum, and a reflective, rather than transmissive, reticlemask 130 may be used.

In an embodiment, the sources 110–112 of soft X-rays may be a compacthigh-average-power, high-repetition-rate laser which impact a targetmaterial to produce broad band radiation with significant EUV emission.The target material may be, for example, a noble gas, such as Xenon(Xe), condensed into liquid or solid form. The target material mayconvert a portion of the laser energy into a continuum of radiationpeaked in the EUV. Other approaches may also be taken to produce the EUVplasma, such as driving an electrical discharge through the noble gas.

The system 100 may combine the illumination from the multiple sources110–112 such that the light from the sources overlap at the same imageplane, e.g., the mask plane 130. This may increase the available powerof the system above that available with a single source. For example,the sources in a multi-source EUV lithography system may generate about35 watts individually, but may provide a power output of 70 watts ormore when combined.

The multi-element pupil 120 may include an array of hexagonal mirrors.FIG. 2 shows a coordinate system for the hexagonal mirrors in an array200. Elliptical mirror sections may be used as imaging collectors 115.Each source may have six associated elliptical mirror sections. One fociof each elliptical mirror section may be at one of the sources 110–112,and the second foci of each elliptical mirror section may be at thecenter of one of the hexagonal mirrors in the pupil array 120.

The designation “Source: x, y” in FIG. 2 identifies the source (x) thehexagonal mirror is imaging and the number of the elliptical mirrorsection (y) associated with source (x) that the hexagonal mirror isimaging light from. For example, the hexagonal mirror 205 with thedesignation “Source: 2, 3” images light from elliptical mirror sectionnumber 3 focusing light from source 2. The central hexagonal mirror 210may receive no light. The distance “r” on the axes refers to thedistance from the center of hexagonal mirror 210 to the position 215 atthe center between the vertices of three adjoining hexagonal mirrors.The center to vertices distance for a hexagonal mirror may be about 0.9r.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart describing a method 300 for imaging a mask imageonto a wafer using multiple sources of radiation. The elliptical mirrorsections may create eighteen source images, e.g., six images of each ofthe three sources 110–112 (block 305). Each of the eighteen sourceimages may be reflected onto one of the hexagonal mirrors in the array200, providing eighteen source images at the pupil 120 (block 310). Theposition and tilt of the hexagonal mirrors in array 200 may be selectedsuch that the central rays of the source images hitting the hexagonalmirrors are reflected parallel to one another (block 315).

The condenser optics 125 may produce a transformation of the images atthe pupil at the mask plane (block 320). The effect of thetransformation may be that light from all positions on the hexagonalmirror array 200 with the same angle arrive at the same position at themask plane but at interleaved angles. In addition, light leaving thearray 200 from different angles may arrive at the mask plane 130 atdifferent positions. In this manner, the central rays of the sourceimages leaving in parallel from the array 200 may focus to a point atthe center of the mask plane at interleaved angles. The images mayoverlap and the illumination from the multiple sources 110–112 maycombine at the mask plane (block 325).

The radiation from the condenser 125 may be directed onto the mask 130.The mask may include reflecting and absorbing regions. The reflected EUVradiation from the mask 130 may carry an IC pattern on the mask to aphotoresist layer on a wafer. The entire reticle may be exposed onto thewafer by synchronously scanning the mask and the wafer, e.g., by astep-and-scan exposure operation. Light from the mask is imaged on tothe wafer using projection optics.

The arrangement of the hexagonal mirrors in the array shown in FIG. 2may cause the reflected source images to interleave in angle in a waythat prevents variations in the power or intensity from any one sourcefrom substantially changing the net weighted position of theillumination at the pupil.

A consideration in designing optical systems is etendue. Etendue is aconserved, invariant quantity in an optical system that may be expressedasNA ² ×A=constantwhere NA is the numerical aperture of the radiation incident at asurface of area A. Etendue may represent a measure of the maximum beamsize and solid angle that can be accepted by an optical system.

The system may be designed such that the combined etendue of the sources110–112 may be less than or equal to the etendue accepted by theproduction optics. If the etendue is consumed by one of the sources,another source image may not be able to be interleaved at the imageplane.

In an alternative illumination system 400, a reflective mask 405, orreticle, may be illuminated by light from multiple sources 410–411 ofEUV radiation, as shown in FIG. 4. The surface of the reticle 405 maycontain the pattern to be imaged on the wafer. In an embodiment, anilluminator 415 may use an optical element, such as a corner mirror 420,to combine the light from the EUV sources 410–411.

The lithography system in which the illumination system 400 is utilizedmay be a scanning system. In a scanning system, the reticle and thewafer may be scanned simultaneously under the illumination. The reticleand the wafer may be mounted on sliding assemblies. The reticle may beilluminated with a rectangular beam of light which scans across thepatterned area as the reticle is moved in a scanning direction. In anembodiment, a reduction ratio demagnification in the scanning system maybe 4×. In such a system, the reticle may travel at a speed four timesfaster than that of the wafer in order to have the image overlapproperly.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart describing a method 500 for illuminating ascanning reticle using multiple sources of radiation. As shown in FIG.6, light beams 610 and 611 from the sources 410 and 411, respectively,may be directed onto the reticle 405 substantially adjacent to oneanother in the scanning direction 620 (block 505). The reticle 405 maybe scanned under the illumination (block 510) so that each part of thepattern receives the same amount of integrated energy from the twobeams. The illumination may be begun before the beginning of the patternand stopped after the end of the pattern. The light beams may bereflected from the reticle 405 onto the image plane such that thepattern image is scanned on the wafer as the reticle is scanned (block515). A photoresist layer on the wafer may integrate the energy fromboth sources (block 520).

The total etendue of the system may set the limit on the number ofsources which may be employed in the system.

As described above, EUV light may be strongly absorbed by manymaterials, including optical elements in the system. In an embodiment,the amount of light reflected from reflective surfaces in an EUVlithography system may be about 67%. The inclusion of the corner mirror420 in the system may increase losses in EUV energy in the optical pathdue to absorption by the added mirror 420.

In an alternative embodiment, the use of an additional optical element,e.g., the corner mirror 420, in the optical path may be avoided. Lightbeams 701–702 from multiple sources 705–706, respectively, may bedirected to a pupil 710 at different angles so that they overlap at aposition 720 on the transform plane at the pupil, as shown in FIG. 7. Asdescribed above, a position at the pupil 710 may correspond to an angleat the image plane at the mask and an angle at the pupil may betransformed to a position at the image plane 715. The angles may beselected such that the light beams arrive at the image plane inpositions 725 and 730, which are parallel and adjacent to each other.

In another embodiment, light from multiple sources may be multiplexed intime. FIG. 8 is a flowchart describing a method 800 for multiplexinglight from multiple sources. As shown in FIG. 9, two or more EUV lightsources 900–904 may be focused at the same focal point 905, but atdifferent angles (block 805). The light from the multiple sources may bedirected to the focal point 910 sequentially at a relatively highrepetition rate, e.g., several kilohertz (block 810). A set of mirrors910 on a rotating base 915 may be positioned under the point of focus905 synchronously with the repetition rate of the sources to align allof the reflections to the same optical path 920 (block 815). The mirrors910 may be angled to direct the light from different sources arriving atdifferent angles along the optical path 920. A number of different setsof mirrors may be rotated on the base to reduce the rate at which thebase must rotate. For example, in the system shown in FIG. 9, fiveseparate sets of five mirrors are rotated under the five sources900–904. Alternatively, a single moving mirror may be used, but may needto be tilted and tipped at a precise angle and at a precise time tocorrectly align the reflections from the different sources.

A number of embodiments have been described. Nevertheless, it will beunderstood that various modifications may be made without departing fromthe spirit and scope of the invention. For example, blocks in theflowcharts may be skipped or performed out of order and still producedesirable results. Also, the illumination system may be used in otherlithography systems, e.g., an x-ray lithography system. Accordingly,other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims.

1. A method comprising: scanning substantially parallel beams of lightacross a patterned portion of a mask during a lithographic imagingoperation, wherein the beams are distinct and each beam is generated bya different one of a plurality of sources, and wherein the substantiallyparallel beams of light illuminate different portions of the mask whilebeing scanned across the mask.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: forming a first beam of light on a mask, said first beam oflight originating from a first one of a plurality of sources; andforming a second beam of light on the mask, said second beam of lightoriginating from a second one of said plurality of sources and beingpositioned substantially parallel to the first beam of light, andwherein said scanning comprises moving the mask relative to said beamsof light in a scanning direction so that the mask is illuminated to thesecond beam of light subsequent to the first beam of light.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, wherein forming said first beam of light comprisesforming a beam having a length at least as long as a length of a maskpattern on the mask and a width less than a width of the mask pattern,and wherein forming said second beam of light comprises forming a beamhaving a length at least as long as the length of the mask pattern and awidth less than the width of the mask pattern.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein the length of the first beam and the length of the second beamare substantially perpendicular to the scanning direction.
 5. The methodof claim 1, wherein the substantially parallel lights are only partiallycoherent.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the substantially parallelbeams of light comprise extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation.